M.I.A.

The Department of Homeland Security must be asleep at the wheel. How else to explain the infiltration of our nation's borders by the polyglot raps and globetrotting electro-flotsam beats of Miss Maya Arulpragasam? The artist known as M.I.A., a caramel-skinned woman who adorns her adolescent frame with outfits home-sewn from original garish graffiti prints, reigned over the indie scene in 2005. That was the year she released her debut album, Arular—the year the press fawned over the mad inventiveness of the Brit-by-way-of-Sri Lanka, gossiped about her relationship with Diplo, and fidgeted over one lyric that seemed to celebrate the tenacity of the PLO(!). Then came a year of nomadism, as M.I.A. skipped from island to shantytown in search of the cross-cultural pollination and underdog energy she needed to create her follow-up. Kala may not be as danceable as its predecessor, but the tour in celebration of it can't be anything less than a multiculti genre-mashing pan-galactic throwdown. With the Cool Kids. 18+.
Tue., Nov. 20, 8 p.m., 2007